Reed Smith Adds Two Partners to Insurance Practice

Schryber and
Weiner have represented clients in a range of disputes—from environmental
coverage, asbestos and professional liability to directors and officers
liability, products liability and bankruptcy.

In an interview
with Legal Times, Schryber said Reed Smith offered a
broader platform to better serve clients. Reed Smith reached out to Schryber
about his interest in joining the firm, he said. Schryber said he’d earlier
asked a Reed Smith lawyer "how things were going over there and by the time I
was talking with people they had a good interest in me, so it was a bit of a
coincidence."

"My basic
philosophy is that every business problem should be covered by some insurance
policy," Schryber said. "Corporate America leaves billions of dollars
on the table every year in insurance money it did not know it had the right
to."

Reed Smith, like
Dickstein, represents policy holders against insurance companies. "Our clients never have to worry about
looking over their shoulder and wondering whether we have an agreement with an
insurance company," Schryber said. "Clients are understandably
nervous about law firms who simultaneously represent insurance companies and
policy holders."

Before
joining Dickstein in 2010, Schryber was a partner at Patton Boggs in Washington,
where he established the indemnification and cost recovery practice. Weiner formerly
headed up Dickstein's fidelity and crime insurance practice.

Several
partners have left Dickstein in recent months.
In July, five energy
lawyers—including Larry Eisenstat, who led Dickstein’s practice—joined Crowell
& Moring. One month later, partner Richard Lehfeldt, who focused on energy
and environment issues, and senior counsel Irving Yoskowitz, left Dickstein for
Crowell.

"What I am particularly proud of as an organization from 2011 to
2012 we reduced our gross revenue and size and increased profitability,"
Dickstein chairman Michael Nannes said in an interview in September. "We
were definitely smaller but more profitable."

Reed Smith,
which has about 1,500 lawyers—five times as many as Dickstein—posted profits
per partner of a little more than $1 million for 2012. The firm's gross revenue exceeded $1
billion, which was up by 2 percent.